Jewish Women’s League Seeks to Curb Intermarriage in United States

An appeal to the 170,000 members of the National Women’s League of the United Synagogue of America to help check intermarriage in the United States, was issued here today by the League following its biennial convention. The question of intermarriage was discussed at the parley.

The organization, representing 650 sisterhoods of American Conservative synagogues was told at its convention that Jews in the United States “have no idea of the tremendous tragedy of intermarriage in the American Jewish community.” The major speaker on this subject at the convention was Rabbi Arthur Neulander, leader of the Rabbinical Assembly of America, central body of the Conservative rabbinate.

The convention adopted a resolution expressing concern over the “current vigorous pressures to put religion into the public schools.” It reiterated the stand of the League that religious teaching “must remain the responsibility of the home, the church and the synagogue.” The convention agreed that “the public schools must and should teach with full objectivity the role that religion has played in the life of mankind and in the development of society, when such teaching is intrinsic to the regular subject matter being studied.” But it opposed “any attempts by the public schools to go beyond this, and teach about the doctrines of religion.”

With regard to the Israel situation, the convention adopted a resolution urging the United States Government “to lend its best efforts in the United Nations and otherwise to bring about direct peace negotiations between Israel and Egypt” calling upon the U.S. “to enter into a security pact with Israel and other Middle East nations desiring to enter such an agreement”, and asking the “Western democracies effectively to guarantee Israel’s legitimate borders and to suggest how Israel can protect herself against Fedayeen and other attacks without yielding her sovereign rights, her dignity and her self-respect.”